I have one of these, my dad bought it used somewhere and I got it from him. It is a hammermill shredder and works pretty well. It works best on dry stuff, wet straw and hay seem to plug it up. I also have another shredder with rotary knives that works better with wet stuff. You can remove slats at the bottom of the Roto-Hoe to control the granularity of the output. Last week I got a bunch of carp to use as fertilizer. I removed all the slats at the bottom and ground them up through the side cutter chute. It worked really well, although it was a mess to clean up. Overall, it is something well worth having at a fraction of the price that new ones are going for, at least partly since Roto-Hoe is no longer in business and parts are impossible to obtain anymore.

Dad and I each have identical 1970's Roto-Hoe 990s with tiller and snow blower attachments. I've never used the snow blower, I have another that works fine. Dad didn't like the Roto-Hoe snow blower so he adapted a Simplicity unit to the Roto-Hoe which he says works much better. Dad has made a lot of minor modifications to our 990s, they both work pretty good now but stock as earthworm said really need refinement to be usable practical machines.

earthworm, the Roto-Hoe tiller eats belts because the poorly-designed spring-loaded belt tensioning mechanism causes the main belt to slip so much. Dad replaced this lever-under-handle spring-loaded mess with a turnbuckle-adjusted lever-over-handle mechanism which locks in place and runs the main belt tight enough that it doesn't slip. The jackshaft belt is held in place by bolts which cannot hold the belt tension and weight of the assembly, causing it to gradually slip down making this belt slip. Dad welded a piece of threaded rod vertically and a stop onto the assembly making the adjustment by nuts on the threaded rod. Once adjusted it will not slip down. He also fabricated a much heavier weight on the front so the tractor is balanced and can easily be guided with one hand.

I don't know the story behind the Roto-Hoe, but it seems to have been thrown into production with inadequate design and testing effort.

Had Mr strelnikov,or his father, been a Roto-Hoe refinement engineer, maybe they would be in business today.
I have no qualms with any manufacturer putting out a "not-so-good" design initially; but they must listen to their customer base and make improvements. And if the customer has to do the design work for a better product, I would hire him and fire the non-productive ones.
But the problem is economics.
The engineers are told to make the product as cheap as possible, then to make it cheaper.. And changes do cost money - so supposedly like the Model T, no changes are made..
So, is it any wonder we are in today's dilemma...
Maybe a new and improved Roro-Hoe could be built in China??

My dad is the genius behing the Roto-Hoe improvements. He's an old school farm kid, raised during the depression, and can make about anything work.
Yeah, Roto-Hoe should have had him on their staff, they might still be around.
A Chinese Roto-Hoe might work better out of the box but it would never last 35 years.

A couple summers ago I purchased a RotoHoe Model 500 Shredder at a farm sale. It was really roll of the dice! I bought the unit because it appeared to have potential, which I would have to extract in some manner. It sat in my garage for about a year with little attention. The break through on this machinery came when I was visiting a vineyard in the nearby Niagara Wine region of Southern Ontario. While looking over the operation, I saw the same Roto Hoe 500 as I had. The owner of the winery told me they had the unit for a long time and found the chipper/shredder to be a handy tool to drag through the rows of vines for shredding the trimmings. He had no manual and said they had set the unit up largely intuitively, having worked with similar equipment in the past. Unfortunately, I lack this experience to readily make use of the chipper and crossing the U. S. Border for a show and tell is not practical or easily possible. It is for this reason I am trying to get my hands on a copy of the manual for the Roto Hoe 500 and any other useful information for the use of this shredder in dealing with the droppings I have from the 18 full grown Maples on my half acre. Drop me an email with any suggestions, or if you might have the manual, the cost of copy and shipping. Thanks, W. B.

I've owned several Roto-hoe machines the later models had a flywheel like the McKissic. I had a 500 5hp, an 800 wheel
barrow style. Iam obtaining an 800 trailer type. They work well because you can fine tune it for wet material. I have
a Mckissic 12pt8. It has a flywheel the800 does not. The
last Roto-Hoe is an 1100 w 11 hp very hopper Ed

I am trying to price a free-swinging hammer type chipper/shredder that I can then convert to a stationary grain thresher, as seen on the web address pasted below.
I would like some recommendations on a unit that I can get used, is a good machine, and the highest HP/hopper capacity possible while still free-swinging hammers. Ideally, I would find a big, deisel-powered one. Any suggestions on a unit, where to find it, and/or what is a good price?

Troy Bilt Tomahawks seem to be plentiful and can be had for $300 or less. The Super Tomahawk has an 8 horse Briggs I/C engine on it. It also has a flywheel to carry momentum through a tough spot. I think it would work good for that thresher conversion.

I had a Super Tomahawk and liked it. The I/C Briggs ran really nice. I only got rid of it because I bought a chipper/shredder to run off my BCS walking tractor. I'm trying to eliminate engines. So far, I've combined the mower, chipper, tiller, and snowblower. I currently own two engines for all lawn and garden work - an 8 horse Kohler on a BCS 730 and a 14 horse Briggs on a BCS 850 - and could technically get rid of one of these.

has anyone maintained the bearings on the main hammer shaft on the Roto-Hoe 500 ? I'm hearing some squeaks. I couldn't find any zerks or grease points. Thanks for any thoughts on this. i'll check the belt idler pulley as well.

I have a Roto-Hoe Model 800 shredder desmanteled and need to have somebody who may have owner's manual that might be willing to run off come photocopies and send by email as an attachment or by mail. I am willing to reemburse the person for his bother. Thanks for your help.

Hey steve 2416, or anybody.... Do you still have your roto-hoe shredder? If you do could you make a diagram of the working parts of the shredder? The one I have is desmanteled and want reassemble it to get it up and running. A manual would be great but a diagram of the working parts would do. Thanks